"Mrs. Oranmore won't tell you her secret."
"Well, if she don't, she'll lose the wisest, nicest sensiblest confidante ever anybody had, though I say it. Any way, I'll try; and if she won't tell, why, she'll have to leave it alone—that's all. When do you start?" she asked, turning to the youth.
"Now, if you're ready," replied the lad.
"Yes, I'm ready. How did you come? by the stage?"
"No, in a sleigh—it's at the door."
"Well, then, I won't detain you. Good-bye for a week, Guardy; good-bye, Aunty Gower. Off we go!"
"Hadn't you better stay till morning," said Mrs. Gower, anxiously. "It is too cold and stormy to travel by night."
"And in the meantime this old lady may give up the ghost. No; there's no time to lose; and besides, I rather like the idea of a journey, to vary the monotony of St. Mark's. Good-bye all—I leave you my blessing," said Gipsy, with a parting flourish, as she left the room and took her place by the side of the boy in the sleigh. Nothing remarkable occurred on the journey. Gipsy, comfortably nestled under the buffalo robes, scarcely felt the cold. The next morning they halted at a wayside inn to take breakfast, and then dashed off again.
Owing to the state of the roads it was late in the afternoon when they reached the city; and almost dark when Gipsy, preceded by her companion, entered the gloomy home of Mrs. Oranmore.
"My stars! what a dismal old tomb. It really smells of ghosts and rats, and I should not wonder if it was tenanted by both," was Gipsy's internal comment as she passed up the long, dark staircase, and longer, darker hall, and entered the sick-room of Mrs. Oranmore—the longest and darkest of all. Stretched on a hearse-like bed—stiff, stark, and rigid, as though she were already dead—lay Madge Oranmore—her face looking like some grim, stern mask carved in iron. An old woman, whom the boy addressed as "mother," sat by her side.